Information from from East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure Ltd - 24th August 2017 -
Q. Please give details of any contact and/or discussions since January 2017 with East Renfrewshire Council or other parties regarding Eastwood Park Leisure Centre and the points made in your email of January 2017.
A. We have had discussions with the council regarding a building condition survey of Eastwood Park Leisure Centre which the Council has commissioned. My understanding is that this is being withheld at present pending publication by the council sometime in the next 3 months.
Information from from East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure Ltd - 2nd August 2017 -
Q. Can you give a more positive response as to when a further update will be available -
What meetings are proposed?
Who with?
When?
Have any further reports been commissioned?
If so, please give details.
Will any further reports be commissioned?
If so, please give details.
A. As I said last time I do not think there will be an update until Autumn at the earliest.
EASTWOOD PARK LEISURE CENTRE
Information from from East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure Ltd - June 2017
As at June 2017 There is no change to the position outlined below.
When will an update be available?
.......do not know at this point, but it is unlikely to be before the autumn.
EASTWOOD PARK LEISURE CENTRE
Information from from East Renfrewshire Culture and Leisure Ltd - January 2017
‘…………….We discussed this at the Information and Consultation Centre in December, …… The centre is scheduled for closure in 2019 for major maintenance and repairs, and the Council approved £6M for this in 2014.
We are currently working with council colleagues to look at options around this, as the £6M falls someway short of the amount required, and other approaches may allow us to leverage external funding; and realise new facilities whilst refurbishing Eastwood Park too.
However, other than for the necessary works, we do not envisage closing it.
We are currently looking at significant programmes for developing and growing our gym membership, swimming lesson take-up and theatre sales at Eastwood.
However, most of our money comes through sport and it is the case that Eastwood struggles to meet the needs of the communities, and we face increased competition, especially in gyms and fitness, that Eastwood cannot at present compete with due to scale, condition and design.
A report by Tuner Townsend was commissioned by the Council in 2014 into Eastwood Leisure Centre.
It noted that it was at that point tired and nearing a point of criticality, with a £1.3M backlog of maintenance.
This maintenance was also just that –remedial works, not improvements to maintain competitiveness.
The report proposed three options.
Option 1
was to do nothing and allow the centre to close.
The second option of the two
was to invest £6.5M to address the immediate maintenance issues.
However, the report noted that “Even by spending £6.5m under Option 2 to keep the facility open, this still does not address the step change in facilities that is necessary to compete with local competition and retain / expand the customer base.”
(The third option was costed at £10M. The Council responded by identifying £6M in the Capital plan for 2019/20.)
One of the options we are looking at is whether we could keep the existing centre, but refurbish it as theatre/gymnastics/fitness/performing arts/function suite, and build a new centre nearby, leveraging the council’s capital with external funding to create a long-overdue new centre for East Renfrewshire (three of our four leisure centres are 30+ years old), together with a centre of excellence in Eastwood Park.
That very much depends on finding a suitable site nearby.
However, this is at an early stage and in either case we do not propose that the Eastwood Centre close (other than for works to be done)…….‘
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